Grand Central Station

Whew... what a morning. It felt a bit like rush hour traffic and we were Grand Central Station . I guess Monday is when things kick back into gear after a nice quiet weekend. From first thing in the morning until about 12:30 pm Steve had a pretty much constant stream of visitors. The surgical team was the first to show up and they said he had done well enough yesterday that he could try some foods of his choice today. There followed after them, not necessarily in the order listed a:

dietician - she left Steve with a menu that looks like something you usually see at a restaurant. He calls in his order when he is ready to eat and about 15 minutes later it gets delivered to his room.

ostomy nurse - she came in to go over what you do for an ostomy and ended up talking Steve through the process of switching his out. The one he had was starting to pull away from his skin and you don't want that stuff to leak out. He was able to do most of it himself with only a very little bit of help from the nurse. She just checked the seals on it to make sure it was nice and tight when he was done.

pain team - they are leaving the epidural in for at least one more day while they see how his body handles real food and not just the soft stuff. If all goes well today with his food, they will remove the epidural tomorrow and then he will switch over to pills that you swallow for his pain control. Apparently that can be a bit of a rougher transition which is why they are waiting until after they get him back on solid food before they remove it.

social worker - she stopped by to see how Steve was handling being in the hospital and all the changes to his body from the surgery. She also wanted to know what kind of a support group he has and whether he needed anything beyond that. She let him know about some of the resources that are available to him if he feels he needs or wants them.

regular nurses - they have their routines they follow to track how he is doing. They also came back in and gave him a wash cloth bath while I ran to get some breakfast in me. (It was after 10:30 and I hadn't had a chance to eat.)

surgical teams tracking nurse - she tracks how Steve is doing through all his treatment and recovery. She was amazed that he was as far along as he was in his recovery. I guess if anything were to change she is the one who would let the appropriate people know.

visitors - My brother and his wife Carol stopped by to say hello and visit for a few minutes. It was a fun treat to see both of them. Two of Steve's friends also stopped in during their lunch hour. They left him a little sign to hang on the wall that says "If I Were Humble, I'd be Perfect". Steve got a good chuckle from that.

phone calls - My mother called about a few things at home and Steve's sister Lauri called just as Steve was heading down the hall for one of his walks. I stayed in the room and visited on the phone with her for a few minutes while he got his exercise in. We have to spread his walks through out the day and he hadn't had a moment to fit one in the whole morning.

After everyone had left, Steve ordered a lunch of macaroni and cheese, some grilled eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash with marinara and cheese, and a chocolate milk shake. He was able to eat almost all of it except the vegies. (Which he ate a little bit of and then had to stop.) They sent just the vegetables in on a dinner size plate and they could have been a meal by themselves. Now that things have slowed down, Steve is trying to take a bit of a nap so that he can get through the second half of the day.